Relax, Child Star Haters, She Grew Up Just Fine

Apparently, despite the fact that she's appeared on talk shows, has a formidable Twitter presence, and, you know, is a normally aging human being, many people still find it hard to believe that Matilda 's Mara Wilson looks different now, at 26, than she did as a child star. Some of them even seem to take offense at Wilson's changed looks, going so far as to tweet the now-playwright their surprise and, far too often, their disappointment, something Wilson pointed out on her Twitter Monday night. Fortunately, she soon found that she's not alone in getting unfairly made fun of by strangers for growing up; later in the night, fellow former child star Jonathan Lipnicki came to Wilson's defense, pointing out his own ridicule and making all our '90s dreams come true.

It all began with a re-tweet by Wilson of an account called @ChildhoodRuiner, comparing photos of her at age nine, in Matilda, and now, as a 26-year-old writer. "Aw, Matilda Grew Up Ugly as Shit," the tweet said, to which Wilson added, "someone links me to this at least once a week." Clearly, though, she didn't take the insult too personally, as she went on to talk to her followers about spam Twitter accounts, if the @ChildhoodRuiner post was written by one of the girls who lost the part of Matilda to her ("and probably not Blake Lively," she wrote), and why she doesn't get why people care so much about how she looks in the first place.

It was an interesting discussion, bringing up the often-interlinked issues of misogyny, Internet anonymity, and the sexualization of child stars, a topic that Wilson's written extensively about before. Yet the highlight came around 1 AM, when Lipnicki, a fellow former child actor known for Jerry Maguire and Stuart Little, chimed in with his own response to the drama.

Yes, we know that the point is that Wilson and Lipnicki are not actually Matilda and The Little Vampire and they should be treated like regular, once-famous adults, but we can't help but love the fact that MATILDA AND THE LITTLE VAMPIRE ARE TALKING. Their conversation, short as it was, is pretty much all someone who grew up in the '90s could ever want. The magic didn't end there, though:

First of all, they're both right, and it's ridiculous people are making fun of them for simply having grown up, and second of all, it's too bad both former stars have mostly retired from acting (and in Lipnicki's case, moved on to mixed martial arts), because we're already planning the Mrs. Doubtfire/Like Mike crossover. Unfortunately, we'll have to settle for their Twitter conversations, and accept that their grown-up (and no, Wilson haters, not ugly) selves are likely done making our '90s kid dreams come true, at least for now.

Image: TriStar